Over the last couple of months I seem to get asked one question again & again, “What’s it like being a civvy now?”

I actually find this quite difficult to answer. It is different & yet it is exactly the same.

I’m doing exactly the same job I was doing before, the only difference is that I do it while wearing different clothes. The job is exactly the same. I sit in the same places, use the same equipment & work with the same people.

Yet there is something indefinably different & I’m not really sure what it is. And it’s not the fact that I get a lot more money now.

It’s like some dark cloak has been lifted from my shoulders & something feels lighter. It may be something to do with responsibility perhaps. I think, to an extent, there is a feeling that you carry some of the weight of the world upon your shoulders as a police officer. There is a feeling that your life is dedicated to righting some of the wrongs, a sense of social responsibility that entails some kind of mental burden.

My moral code hasn’t changed but I think to an extent that I’ve now left that behind; it’s somebody else’s task now, I’ve kind of left the baton behind for others to pick up.

Or maybe I’m just trying to look too deep.

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